These data examine the effects on total crime rates of
changes in the demographic composition of the population and changes in
criminality of specific age and race groups. The collection contains
estimates from national data of annual age-by-race specific arrest
rates and crime rates for murder, robbery, and burglary over the
21-year period 1965-1985. The data address the following questions: (1)
Are the crime rates reported by the Uniform Crime Reports (UCR) data
series valid indi... (more info)

These data examine the effects on total crime rates of
changes in the demographic composition of the population and changes in
criminality of specific age and race groups. The collection contains
estimates from national data of annual age-by-race specific arrest
rates and crime rates for murder, robbery, and burglary over the
21-year period 1965-1985. The data address the following questions: (1)
Are the crime rates reported by the Uniform Crime Reports (UCR) data
series valid indicators of national crime trends? (2) How much of the
change between 1965 and 1985 in total crime rates for murder, robbery,
and burglary is attributable to changes in the age and race composition
of the population, and how much is accounted for by changes in crime
rates within age-by-race specific subgroups? (3) What are the effects
of age and race on subgroup crime rates for murder, robbery, and
burglary? (4) What is the effect of time period on subgroup crime rates
for murder, robbery, and burglary? (5) What is the effect of birth
cohort, particularly the effect of the very large (baby-boom) cohorts
following World War II, on subgroup crime rates for murder, robbery,
and burglary? (6) What is the effect of interactions among age, race,
time period, and cohort on subgroup crime rates for murder, robbery,
and burglary? (7) How do patterns of age-by-race specific crime rates
for murder, robbery, and burglary compare for different demographic
subgroups? The variables in this study fall into four categories. The
first category includes variables that define the race-age cohort of
the unit of observation. The values of these variables are directly
available from UCR and include year of observation (from 1965-1985),
age group, and race. The second category of variables were computed
using UCR data pertaining to the first category of variables. These are
period, birth cohort of age group in each year, and average cohort size
for each single age within each single group. The third category
includes variables that describe the annual age-by-race specific arrest
rates for the different crime types. These variables were estimated for
race, age, group, crime type, and year using data directly available
from UCR and population estimates from Census publications. The fourth
category includes variables similar to the third group. Data for
estimating these variables were derived from available UCR data on the
total number of offenses known to the police and total arrests in
combination with the age-by-race specific arrest rates for the
different crime types.

Universe:
All arrests and crimes reported to police in the United
States during the period 1965-1985.

Data Types:
aggregate data

Methodology

Data Source:

Federal Bureau of Investigation. UNIFORM CRIME REPORTS:
CRIME IN THE UNITED STATES (Published Report).

Extent of Processing: ICPSR data undergo a confidentiality review and are altered when necessary to limit the risk of
disclosure. ICPSR also routinely creates ready-to-go data files along with setups in the major
statistical software formats as well as standard codebooks to accompany the data. In addition to
these procedures, ICPSR performed the following processing steps for this data collection:

Checked for undocumented or out-of-range codes.

Version(s)

Original ICPSR Release:1991-10-23

Version History:

2005-11-04 On 2005-03-14 new files were added to one
or more datasets. These files included additional setup files as well
as one or more of the following: SAS program, SAS transport, SPSS portable,
and Stata system files. The metadata record was revised 2005-11-04 to
reflect these additions.